Barzaghi needed to stop a standing marble figure from falling over, so he put a stack of books behind its legs and covered them with a coat. Venice has called the statue the book-shitter ever since.
At a glance
Niccolò Tommaseo (1802–1874) was a writer, lexicographer and patriot, one of the two men who led the Venetian republic of 1848–49. The monument in Campo Santo Stefano is by the Milanese sculptor Francesco Barzaghi (1839–1892), carved from a single block of Carrara marble and unveiled on 22 March 1882.
What you see
A standing figure in a long coat, a book in the hand, the head slightly down. Behind the legs, a stack of volumes rises from the base, half covered by the falling coat. Barzaghi put them there for a structural reason: a free-standing marble of this height needs a second point of support, and books were the obvious attribute for a man who had written a dictionary of the Italian language. From behind and from the side, the effect is not the one he intended.
Why it matters
Venetians named it the same year: cagalibri. The nickname has outlasted the fame of the man commemorated, which is the risk every public monument runs and this one lost. It is also a piece of evidence about how a city reads the sculpture it is given — from the angle it happens to walk past, not the angle the sculptor drew. Campo Santo Stefano is a thoroughfare; almost nobody approaches the statue from the front.
Practical information
- In the open square, visible at any hour and free
- Walk around it: the reason for the nickname is only clear from behind
Getting there
Waterbus to Sant’Angelo or Accademia; the campo lies on the main route between the Accademia bridge and Piazza San Marco.
Sources
- Wikimedia Commons, Monument to Niccolò Tommaseo (Venice), on Francesco Barzaghi and the unveiling of 22 March 1882
- Venezia Autentica, Niccolò Tommaseo in Campo Santo Stefano, on the structural function of the books and the Venetian nickname
Editorial text © Cultural Heritage Online, 2026. Video filmed and narrated on site by Andrea Manzo.
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